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Children

Crystal is 3 1/2. During our scriptures discussion this morning:

Jesus got resurrected and is alive again.
Crystal: Why?
So that we can be resurrected too and be alive again a while after we die.
Crystal (starts whining): But I don't want to die ...
Don't worry, it's going to be a long long time before you die when you're a great-grandma and your body hurts and then you will think that it's okay to die.
Crystal (still whining): I don't want to die.
Well, maybe you won't die if Jesus returns when you're still alive and your body will automatically become perfect.
Crystal (whines some more): I want Jesus to come back now! waaah
I think that some people still have things to get done first like learn about Jesus and repent of their sins and get baptized and there are some spirits that still need to be born into bodies.
Crystal: I want to walk on the water.

A Newborn and the Toilet

It's crazy how many diapers a newborn can go through, especially when I change it immediately after each poop. Chester would continue pooping after I just changed the diaper several times and I would feel that I'm totally wasting so many diapers and diapers are so expensive! Well, diapers weren't always in existence and there aren't diapers everywhere in the world even today, so what do those people do?

I didn't find out about "elimination communication" until Crystal was 7 months old and too old for it already. I tried with her anyways and I'm sure it helped her to get potty trained earlier than she would have. I'm especially grateful that she doesn't wet the bed. A good book to read about it is Diaper Free Baby. It is said that forcing kids to go in their diapers when they're little babies is a step in the wrong direction potty-training-wise and then by the time potty training starts at 2-5 (whenever they're "ready") the kids can't control their bodies anymore and can be stubborn and difficult as you're trying to undo the diaper-training that happened.

I've actually met people who practiced elimination communication and had children completely potty-trained by the time they turned 1. With the birth of a second child, I have a chance to try elimination communication starting at birth and it's been good so far. Chester is now 3 weeks old, and I think by now I've learned some signs that he needs to pee or poop.
-He may grunt and hold his breath or make squeaking sounds
-Whenever he wakes up and fussily stretches and squirms
-When he punches his face
-As soon as I take him out of the wrap
-When it's been a while and his diaper is still dry
-When he acts hungry and bobs his head around but is unable to latch
-or when he jerks off the breast when he's supposed to still be hungry.

So at any of those times, when I'm not too tired to get up, I'll take him to the toilet, hold his thighs to his tummy, and he'll urinate twice and poop 4 times all within 5 minutes or so. So that he doesn't pee on the wall, I have to just point his member down with my finger. When I'm too tired in the night and the diaper is already wet, I'll just stay laying down with my knees up, sit his back against my legs and hold his thighs up for a few minutes and I'll hear him fart several times in his diaper and then I'll change it only when it's poopy. This helps him to get the gas or poop out faster so that he can nurse and return to sleep faster. I love my children so much and I love to understand them better.

So, I felt inspired to write this post because after secretly practicing elimination communication at my convenience for 3 weeks, at 3 pm we haven't had any "misses" so far today. As I've been putting the same dry diaper back on him all day, I've only used that 1 diaper.

Baby #2 is Here!

Chester Craig Kelley, born July 2nd (10 days early), 8 lbs 0 oz, 20 3/4 inches.

Birth Story:

June 30th, 10:30 pm: A squirt of water wakes me up. I don't feel anymore contractions and I go back to sleep. July 1st, 3 am: I wake up to another squirt of water and start to worry. I get up and surf the internet but I don't have any contractions, so I leave for Jury Duty at 6 am. I leak bits of fluid all day but no contractions. I'm dismissed from Jury Duty at around noon and make it to the hospital at around 1:30 pm.

I'm at 4 1/2 cm dilated. They tell me since I've been "in labor" for a long time that they have to put me on Pitosin and antibiotics and have to keep monitors on me continuously. They wait 3 hours before putting me on Pitosin and I'm still at 4 1/2 cm. The nurse keeps getting angry/frustrated that my monitors have to be readjusted whenever I shift my weight to my other butt cheek or when the baby moves (all the time). I also unplug myself from everything when going to the bathroom. Anyways I'm on the Pitosin for several hours and my contractions are only a little stronger and closer together.

July 2nd: I'm extremely tired and try to sleep (unsuccessfully) between contractions. I'm checked again at 2 am or so and I'm still at 4 1/2 cm. But, then the midwife notices that I still have a bag full of water in the way. She pops that and sticks an internal monitor on the baby's head so that we can leave the external monitors off and I can move around more freely. Labor and transition then comes quickly and strongly and I'm extremely uncomfortable and change positions a couple times, whine and cry, and the baby is born at 4:32 am. He cries and then pees himself in the face.

I didn't rip and needed no stitches which is wonderful. Since the baby came a week early, we were able to leave for our family vacation to the beach house!

Baby #2 Coming

Now that Crystal can take care of herself, a little sibling is on the way! The baby will come around July 12th or something.

Our time with baby Crystal has been precious. I breastfed her on-demand for much of her babyhood and it was great that my period didn't come until she was 15 months old. I slept with her and breastfed her throughout the night until she was 2 and then I stopped feeding her during the night. I then weaned her completely by the time she was 2 years and 3 months old. I was unable to get pregnant with the next one until 4 months after that.

Now I'm about 2 months along and Crystal is 2 years and 9 months old. We've just started not letting her join us in the middle of the night because it was driving us nuts how her wiggling and climbing was keeping us awake. When she comes, I just walk her back to her room, give her a hug, and shut the door. I always remember to warn her that if she comes back out then I will lock her in room and then she usually chooses to stay in her room.

After a stubborn 2 years of potty training since she was a baby, I am glad to say that now Crystal is completely potty trained. She sits on the potty without being told and she asks to go potty when we're out. She even stays dry every night.

I love the beach!!!!

The roaring of the ocean. The wind in my hair. The oh-so-soft sand in my toes. We camped at Assateague State Park in June this year instead of the usual September and boy was it windy! It was in the mid-70s that week and it feel too cold to really go swimming. I was wearing a sweatshirt all week and the wind at the beach was making the sand fly into our legs like sharp needles. Because of how spectacular the ocean is, we still enjoyed it very much. I didn't want to leave after 4 days. If it were possible for us to live permanently in a tent on a beach, we definitely would.

Hot Days at the Creek

Our main air conditioning unit has always been broken and we've never felt the need to get it fixed. Last summer and this summer, whenever it got hotter than 89 degrees in the house, we turned on a window unit so that it cooled down to 85 and was semi-comfortable again. I like to say that we're minimalists. I don't like to spend much money. The only thing that I can go crazy spending lots of money on is food. Fresh vegetables are important to me. We eat at restaurants too often ($30/month). Apart from that, the amount that we pay for our internet, home phone, and 2 cell phones totals to about $60/month. We only do Netflix during the summer ($8/month) and my reading habit costs about $7/month. So, when that unexpected storm came and knocked down some trees in the D.C. area, our power was out for 5 days it wasn't so bad since we already weren't using any air conditioning and neither were we watching much TV or playing many computer games. What was hard for us was not having any fresh refrigerated food available.

For days when it's 90-100 degrees outside, we like to spend some time in the water. There is no way that I will spend $14 for me and two kids (Crystal and her friend) at the public swimming pool each day, so instead we go to the creek every now and then. As long as my legs are in the cool water, even when it's 100 degrees outside, I never feel hot. It's less than one mile away from us and the few people who know about it keep it as a secret. But, I'm willing to share it with you because I love it so much. So if any of you want to come to the creek with us sometime, send me an email. You are also welcome to our baby pool.

Mothering a 2-year old

Crystal is potty-trained enough for wearing underwear now. She will go on the toilet public bathrooms but she get's pretty stubborn at home. Usually, I can get her to sit on her potty herself with minimal fighting if I first give a warning: "go sit on the potty or I will drag you." The nicer version sometimes works: "can you do it yourself or shall I help?" It also works for other things. She loves her independence.

Also, I am still breast feeding Crystal but I have night-weaned her. This means that I give her only "milky" at bedtime, morning time, and throughout the day; not during the night. I sleep in her bed with her or in another bed in the same room most of the time. So whenever it's the middle of the night and she asks for milky, I say something like "no milk and if you cry, I'm leaving the room" and "it's still nighttime: you can have milky in the morning." Of course the threat only works after I have actually left the room immediately when she cried (and I return after only a moment). I then ask her "will you be happy? Say 'I will be happy.'" Then she wipes her eyes and says "I will be happy." So she believes me when I threaten her and she won't cry and will go back to sleep.

I've also stopped giving her milky during her 2-3 hour nap. When I'm done giving her first milk and she's still not asleep. I pretend that I'm asleep while repetitively telling her to lay down and close her eyes and stop talking. Again: "If you sit up or if you talk, I'm leaving the room." If she ever misses her nap, it makes for a very poor rest of the day, so I make sure that I do whatever I can to convince her to go to sleep for her nap at the perfect time each day: 12:30 unless she get's tired eyes and moody earlier.

Crystal was dancing at Zumba on Thursday and it was so sweet! We have so much fun together and I love her so much! She is such a wonderful little sweetie!

This is Steve and Crystal during General Conference:

How I Spend My Time

Lately, I've been reading the Wheel of Time series by Robert Jordan. Each book is 800-or-so pages long. I started the first book shortly after my birthday or was it Christmas? Now I've just started the 6th book but think that I'm slowing down now.

For the past couple of days I've been practicing some vector calculus and I'm really enjoying it. Funny since I can't remember enjoying it much when I took it during a summer semester 7 years ago.

I'm tutoring math even more than ever and I am enjoying that also. My favorite students are my 9th and 10th graders taking algebra and algebra II. The most exciting subject for me to tutor is any of the college Calculus courses.

This year, I gave Crystal only a small birthday party and I gave Steve the bigger birthday party. In the 7 years of marriage, I had never given Steve a birthday party, partially because he hates big/long parties. But this year, he prompted the idea himself by suggesting that we invite his brothers over to share the cake. That's when I immediately started making the phone calls. For his cake, I followed the recipe for the "Red Waldorf" cake in the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook except that I left out the red food coloring called it "Brown Waldorf." Though the name doesn't sound too good, the cake was.

Christmas time

This year, I feel happy that we had a full Christmas experience.

Activities include:
-Going clothes shopping on Black Friday
-Christmas party at church where we forced Crystal to momentarily sit on Santa's lap.
-Trip to the U.S. Botanic Garden downtown where we saw little trains.
-Visit to the Festival of Lights at the temple visitor's center where we watched a saxophone quartet.
-Christmas eve at Grandma Kelley's where we witnessed Rudolph sneaking around the backyard.
-I got a new bike for Christmas! and
-Hosting Christmas day dinner at our home with 19 Kelleys. This was the most exciting for me and it turned out great.

Crystal 18-36 months

Other news:
-We're still moving forward to buying half of our home.
-We're still potty training Crystal.
-I may be teaching a different primary class at church next year: I guess I'll find out when the decision final.
-Steve got a B in his Materials Science class this semester and will be registering for another class for next semester.
-The 6th grader that I've been tutoring got a 100% on a math quiz. Yay!

Loving and Missing the Outdoors

I haven't really been excited enough about anything these last few months. I guess that happens when starts to get cold. My favorite activity lately had been riding my bike (with Crystal in the trailer) to neighborhood playgroups 2-3 times a week and taking extra loops around the lake. I had to stop about a month ago because our garage door fell apart and it became too difficult to open and close in order to get the bike and trailer out. Well, the garage door should be getting replaced tomorrow! Hurray!

Click for some recent photos of our fall camping trip to Shenandoah and Crystal's Halloween costume.

Crystal 18-36 months

Other news:

At church, Crystal loves being in nursery while I teach the Sunbeams class.

Crystal 20 months old now and is part-time potty-training. I would let her be naked all of the time at home, except that she gets bad eczema (dry rashy skin) on her bottom in the winter and she needs clothes on to keep her skin protected from the dry air. So, right now I'm just letting her be naked every hour or so until she goes potty and then her clothes go back on. I'm afraid that that would be punishing her for going potty, so I still don't really have a coherent plan yet. I think that I should get some cloth diapers/training pants or something.

Crystal is also able to say pretty much every word now and several small sentences. She's very good at being polite by saying please, thank you, excuse me, and sorry all on her own. She counts to 12 and she sings some ABCs. She can even say prayers! But, she is still pretty quiet and shy in front of other people, just like her mommy and daddy are. She's also getting better at jumping. She has 16 full teeth.

She goes to sleep 8-9 pm, regularly wakes up for help-milk at 2am and 4am, and gets up at 6-7 am. I sleep on a separate bed in the same room. I think that I'll keep breastfeeding her until after she's at least two. It seems that I still haven't been able to get pregnant while breastfeeding which is fine because we're in no rush.

We're still living with just one car and it works just fine. I loving paying $800 less car insurance per year and not worrying about oil changes too.

We're trying to find a mortgage so that we can buy half of our house (the half that my Mother-in-law doesn't own). The house appraised at $245K, pretty low for it's size and neighborhood, because of its need of major remodeling.

I've also started math tutoring at home and I love it! It has all of the good things about teaching without the bad things like grading, classroom discipline, and bureaucrats. I charge $25/hour and I've only been advertising on craigslist. I need some more students, so please refer me to anyone you know that's looking for a math tutor. As I have a B.S. in Mathematics, I can help with pretty much any high school or college math course.

Earthquake

On August 23rd, a few minutes before 2 pm, I start to feel the house shaking. I'm thinking: Earthquake? No, Maryland doesn't have earthquakes. Can the house be collapsing on its own? No, the house is pretty sturdy. I look out the window and try to see whether the other houses are shaking too. I can't tell. I wander around for a second wondering what I should do, walk over to Crystals room and watch her sleep for the duration of the quake which ended up lasting a few minutes. Afterwards, I get online to check if there was an earthquake forecast for today to learn that earthquakes are generally not forecast. I turn on the TV and see the news confirming the earthquake. After about a half hour, I get a call from Steve and a call from his mother to check on things. We didn't get any damage and nothing even fell down, but there were many other buildings that did sustain damage, including public buildings like the Washington Monument, many schools (some having to close for several days), and the temple's spire got damaged too.

I think it was two winters ago, during Snowmageddon/Snowpocalypse, when we lost power at our apartment in Greenbelt for 24 hours or so, a tree crashed into the window of the apartment next to ours, and we spent the night with our family members, who did have power, in College Park. One of their neighbors was sadly killed in her car by a falling tree.


This summer, Hurricane Irene appeared to take the power away from even more people and for even longer for some. Church was cancelled even before the storm started. Steve wouldn't allow us to open the fridge even for a moment. We cooked items from our food storage on a propane camping stove on our porch. But without the fresh/frozen vegetables, I still felt like I was so starving, so we wound up eating at a Golden Corral. That made me very happy.

See the leaf debris?

And the new pond at our Assateague camp site.

Beach House 2011

Oh how do I love the beach! The shifty soft sand, the blowing wind, the toasty hot sun, the roaring waves. Relaxing in my beach chair or swimming in the cool wet ocean: Crystal and I only came back inside for meals and naps. Every day, we were the first ones on the beach, and almost the last ones to return inside. Now that we've returned home, I feel satisfied at a vacation well-spent!



Thank you, dear Mother-in-law, for paying thousands of dollars each and every year for all of us to enjoy the magnificent wonder of the ocean and the warmth of our big family's love. I love you very much and I'll soon start counting down again to next year's beach trip. Yippee!

Also, thank you to the Watsons and the Strongs who bought plane tickets to fly across the country for this. Crystal and I loved chatting and playing with all of you and are sad to say goodbye! We love you!

15 Months Update

Crystal is now 15 months old! She's 25 lbs, 32 inches: putting her at 90th percentile for height and 75th for weight. She now has 12 teeth and a little more hair. Walking by herself is still to scary for her and I love it when she often reaches for my hand.


Words that she can say moderately well include book, bike, shoe, flop (for flip-flops), ball, dog, cat, toes, ear, hair, eye, milk, juice, cheese, grape, mommy, and dad. She does try to repeat every word that we say though many of the others come out sounding like "ba."

We got a renter for the upstairs bedroom and he's a 43-year-old Navy officer that had to move to the area for work is leaving his family for a year. He leaves for work early and returns late, goes on many trips, and it's almost like he's never here!

Our Ford Focus' engine died for good, so now we're down to only one car. Right now, we only need one car though it's still an adjustment for us. Steve rides his bike 6.5 miles to work when the weather permits and loves it.

Photos update:

Crystal 12-18 months

Recent photo highlights:
enjoying the airshow
trip to the zoo
Crystal's cousins visiting from Utah

Mother's Day

I love being a mom!

Other news:

-At almost 14 months, Crystal stands on her own now, but will only walk while holding our hands. She goes in the potty about 4 times a day. She still nurses throughout the night. She still has very little hair but she does have 10 teeth. She loves chasing grandma's cat around the yard and her favorite word to say is "book"

-We might be getting a summer intern to rent the room upstairs from us.
-I'm sad that one of my sunbeams is moving away. I've become pretty attached to them.
-Steve's parents have been called to a different ward.

Crystal is One!

We had a little party on Saturday with Crystal's favorite friends and family members. It wasn't quite warm enough to have it outside, so we had the party inside and it was still a blast! Crystal had so much fun and also loved having extra time with her cousins for a few hours before the party and the previous evening.

I had never thrown a party for anyone before and I was totally stressing out about it all week long. I spent much of the previous day and that morning cooking and baking and I really enjoyed doing it. We made pita bread, bean dip, guacamole, hummus, yellow cake with chocolate frosting, and a banana cake with cream cheese frosting. Steve liked the bean dip, and my dad liked the guacamole. Crystal also loved the guacamole and the cake. My attempt at homemade hummus wasn't that good. I'll try to be more precise with making it next time. Also, the banana cake was awesome!

The right number of people came including 4 of Crystal's baby friends that she loves. The favorite toy was the dinosaur walker and she ended up with two of those, one from each set of grandparents!

Overall, I was satisfied with the outcome and happy that we did it. Even Steve expressed his appreciation to me!

New Year's Resolutions Progress

Well, it is March, and I still haven't dropped any of my goals. I was thinking about adding one to make handmade bread but I'm still wondering whether it's worth it.

1. Daily family scripture study:
Still have been doing it after dinner but only about 4 times/week. Sometimes Steve doesn't return home from work early enough for us to have enough time before bedtime. Many times, though, we are watching a show from netflix until bedtime and totally forget about reading. We just need to remember to either pause it or turn it off in order to read.

2. Get Steve a higher paying job:
Well, I did apply to 4 or so jobs for him through the UMD's career center but only one called back and they said that they only wanted someone with experience with PLC. Though, I just applied Steve for another job that was just posted today in the middle of writing this (only because I was writing this).

3. Find a renter for the upstairs bedroom?
I posted it on ldshousing.net and one person that is moving to the area in June asked about it. I told her to ask again when it's closer. I'm hoping for more inquiries to come before the beginning of the fall semester. I have reservations about posting on Craigslist though I may if/when we're closer to fall and still have no one.

4. Plan a few trips to the temple: babysitter?
I went to the temple by myself 2 Saturdays ago for the 8 am session while Steve had the baby at home. It was wonderful although the baby was sad. Steve should be planning a trip for himself also. We need to try to make it a habit for every month.

5. Learn the names of every person at church.
I had been learning two names each week until my new calling and now I'm only learning one each week. Trying to say each person's name in my head or out loud when I see them so that I don't forget.

6. Either take inventory and organize or get rid of everything in basement/attic
Being working on it every Mon, Wed, and Fri night while we're in the basement pumping iron. Threw out 2 grocery bags of junk. Organizing baby/kid clothes during the day. Started posting furniture on craigslist this week. Three people are interested in the china cabinet and one person interested in the pair of dressers.

7. Vegetable garden
Reading a book from the library. I need to go to Behnke's to buy some seeds this week. Tomatoes need to be started indoors and broccoli can also be started soon.

New Church Calling

This past Sunday was my first day teaching the Sunbeams A (half of the 3 year olds) class at church. I had a full attendance of 5 and they are so funny. They learned that "the Holy Ghost helps us," and they got bored silly after only a few minutes talking about it. A few times throughout the 45 minutes they either burst out into silly noise-making or silly romping around the room. They did really well when we sang a short song a few times over at the end. Next week we'll do some gluing and maybe have snacks in addition. The lesson is titled: "I am thankful for the day and for the night." I'm also thinking of ways to get them to want to participate more in sharing time and singing time with the rest of Primary. I love my new calling. :)

Being with Mommy

Eating lunch
Preparing dinner
Doing dishes
Checking internet

Exercising outside
Other things that we do include:
taking a bath, taking naps, going to the grocery store, and practicing 3D Calculus.

This is the life.

Whoa 2011

The camera is broken at the moment.

Crystal is almost 10 months old. At her 9-month appointment, she measured 20 lbs, 4 oz, 30 inches long, and 17 1/2 around head. In other words, for her age, she is in the 75th percentile for weight, 98th percentile for height, and 40th percentile for head size.

I just bought Crystal's next car seat. Even though she meets the physical criteria for it, she's supposed to also be 1 years old. I'm just keeping it next to the door for a day when I can no longer squeeze her into her current belt.

Crystal got a diaper rash from sleeping in a poopy diaper after pooping in the middle of the night, so I've had her diaperless for the past couple of days for the rash to heal. Each day, she typically peed at least 5 times on the potty and twice on the floor.

I had apple slices on my lunch salad today. Yum!

You may think that being a stay-at-home mom would be boring, but it is quite the opposite. I am actually way busier now than I was when I was working and without the baby. For example, now I'm expected to do much of the cooking, cleaning, and grocery shopping, and with a baby on my hip, those things take longer. Also, the baby needs me to spend a lot time rocking and snuggling her.

Actually I can think of a time when I was even busier and that was when I was student teaching 4 years ago. I oftentimes stayed at the school until 5 entering grades and making parent phone calls and I feel asleep at 6pm right after dinner and woke myself up at 3am in order to type up lesson plans that were never finished. And I guess that I did all of that for 3 months for nothing since I got kicked out of the program for "poor performance." I thought that the method of assessing me was sort of wishy-washy and I never figured out how to play the game.

New year's resolutions?
1. Daily family scripture study: after dinner?
2. Get Steve a higher paying job. Need $40k+
3. Find a renter for the upstairs bedroom?
4. Plan a few trips to the temple: babysitter?
5. Learn the names of every person at church.
6. Either take inventory and organize or get rid of everything in basement/attic
7. Vegetable garden